1.
The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
Jean Cocteau
2.
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Jean Cocteau
3.
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Jean Cocteau
4.
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
Jean Cocteau
5.
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
Jean Cocteau
6.
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
Jean Cocteau
7.
The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.
Jean Cocteau
8.
Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
Jean Cocteau
9.
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
Jean Cocteau
10.
Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
Jean Cocteau
11.
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
Jean Cocteau
12.
The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
Jean Cocteau
13.
Living is a horizontal fall.
Jean Cocteau
14.
Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
Jean Cocteau
15.
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
Jean Cocteau
16.
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
Jean Cocteau
17.
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
Jean Cocteau
18.
I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.
Jean Cocteau
19.
What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist's presence makes itself felt above that of the model... With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul's style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies.
Jean Cocteau
20.
Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.
Jean Cocteau
21.
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau
22.
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
Jean Cocteau
23.
I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love
Jean Cocteau
24.
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
Jean Cocteau
25.
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Jean Cocteau
26.
French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
Jean Cocteau
27.
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
Jean Cocteau
28.
What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.
Jean Cocteau
29.
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.
Jean Cocteau
30.
The job of the poet (a job which can't be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.
Jean Cocteau
31.
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
Jean Cocteau
32.
Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
Jean Cocteau
33.
May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
Jean Cocteau
34.
Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
Jean Cocteau
35.
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
Jean Cocteau
36.
Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.
Jean Cocteau
37.
Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
Jean Cocteau
38.
The joy of the young is to disobey
Jean Cocteau
39.
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.
Jean Cocteau
40.
Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
Jean Cocteau
41.
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
Jean Cocteau
42.
Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.
Jean Cocteau
43.
Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative.
Jean Cocteau
44.
We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
Jean Cocteau
45.
There's no such thing as love; only proof of love.
Jean Cocteau
46.
The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
Jean Cocteau
47.
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
Jean Cocteau
48.
After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
Jean Cocteau
49.
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.
Jean Cocteau
50.
If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
Jean Cocteau